I've been using a dual-SIM solution as a dedicated data SIM for 2 years now and it works great to share a big bundle between multiple devices, especially now that your phone is also a big data user (maps,email,etc).
This is really not something new - i could have activated 4 extra data SIMs before if i wanted.
Not sure if this is correct. Before you could tie one contract SIM, one DataSIM and one BB SIM together.
Dual-SIM (or Twin-SIM) is something else. In this case both SIMs carry the same services but only 1 of the 2 can be active at any given point in time. Whichever SIM you turned on last will be the active SIM. If you have both on at the same time, the network will get confused where to send the calls, SMSs, etc.
Typically you use Twin-SIM when you carry two different phones but only have one active at a time. A fancy smartphone for the office, an old clunker while cycling, for example.
If you try and use a dual-SIM as a data SIM, it will work, but you're going to get dropped calls, missing SMS's, etc. We currently see a lot of issues with people sticking a Dual-SIM in their iPADs and then blame the network because they're not receiving calls, etc. (The calls are coming through, but end up on the iPAD!).
DataSIM is very popular. Many households now have a number of data devices and there were many requests for a single data bundled to be shared by multiple people to drive down costs.
Instead of buying a bundle per device, typically at a higher /MB price per bundle, you now can buy a single, bigger bundle and pay less /MB.
